The author of a science fiction manga that will soon be sold in Japan admits that he has “absolutely zero” talent for drawing and relied on artificial intelligence to create the dystopian tale.
In “Cyberpunk: Peach John,” every futuristic machine and creature was painstakingly made using Midjourney, a well-known AI program that has revolutionized the creative world, as well as additional resources like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2.
Concerns about the possible threat that technology may represent to jobs and copyright in the country’s multibillion-dollar comic book industry have been raised in response to the artwork, which is the first entirely AI-drawn manga in Japan.
The author, who goes by the pen name Rootport, wrote the more than 100-page comic in just six weeks as opposed to a skilled artist’s year-long need.
“It was a fun process, it reminded me of playing the lottery,” the 37-year-old told AFP.
With the aid of text hints like “pink hair,” “Asian lad,” and “stadium jacket,” manga creator Rootport was able to quickly conjure up images of the story’s protagonist.
The best images were then organized to make a book in the style of a comic book
The best images were then organized to make a book in the style of a comic book, which has already gained interest online ahead of its March 9 release by Shinchosha, a renowned publishing company.
Unlike traditional black-and-white manga, his art is fully colored, even if the same character’s face may occasionally take on noticeably different appearances.
Nonetheless, the author remarked that, as long as they had compelling stories to tell, AI picture generators “opened the door for those without the creative talent to make breakthroughs” into the manga industry.
Rootport claimed to have felt a sense of fulfillment when his written instructions, which he refers to as “magic spells,” generated an image that matched what he had imagined.
A few Japanese lawmakers have expressed concerns about artists’ rights, despite experts’ assertions that copyright violations are uncommon if AI work is produced with simple text instructions and no human ingenuity.
Some have expressed concern that the technology might drive out younger manga artists from their careers because they carefully paint background images for each scene.